Top Mariachis Headline Santa Ana Festival

Cinco de Mayo and mariachis are as inseparable as the Fourth of July and fireworks, and in downtown Santa Ana, the most vibrantly Latino area in Orange County, typically there is no shortage of the traditional Mexican bands on May 5.

Finding a professional, creative band among the ensembles that emerge from Santa Ana’s bars for the day is another matter.

This year, however, the mariachis will be not only numerous but also very, very good: Two of the top mariachis in Southern California--Los Camperos de Nati Cano and Mariachi Uclatlan--will headline a two-day, 14-hour mariachi festival that will also bring junior high, high school and college bands to Santa Ana.

“Everything you do down here with Mexican culture is successful--that’s automatic,” said Florinda Mintz-Yoder, marketing director for Fiesta Marketplace, the sponsor and locale of the event. “But there aren’t always quality requirements, and we wanted to do something different . . . with an artistic challenge, a focus and a lot of energy.”

The festival, the first of its kind in Orange County, is patterned after international mariachi festivals held annually in Tucson and San Antonio. If it’s successful--and, given the lineup and free admission, it is hard to imagine that it won’t be--the Santa Ana festival could become an annual event with conferences and classes for younger mariachis like those conducted at the Southwestern festivals, Mintz-Yoder said.

In booking Los Camperos, the festival is getting the top group in Los Angeles and one of the best in the country. They were one of the groups that backed Linda Ronstadt on her album of mariachi standards, “Canciones de Mi Padre,” and have played at La Fonda, their landmark L.A. restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard, for 20 years.

Nati Cano, the bandleader and third-generation mariachi who says he gave up playing “40 pounds ago,” was a pioneer in bringing mariachi music out of rough barrooms and introducing it to middle-class audiences in Los Angeles.

But the band was a victim of its own success as well. By playing every night in a restaurant that became a tourist attraction, the group gave up some of its creativity and tightness, as different members were given nights off and little time was left for rehearsal.

For the past year or so, Los Camperos has let the Orange-based Mariachi Uclatlan cover for them two nights a week while Cano whips his group into shape.

The difference is telling, says Mark Fogelquist, the leader of Uclatlan and artistic director of this weekend’s festival.

“Los Camperos has never been better,” said Fogelquist, an ethnomusicologist who studied mariachi music at UCLA in the 1970s. “They’re like a boxer who puts on the gloves and goes straight for the knockout--they really knock out the audience.”

For both groups, the festival is a chance to let thousands of people hear mariachi music at a new level and in a setting that gives this traditional, highly developed art form its due.

A few solo singers from Santa Ana and Mexico will join the mariachis for part of the program, but unlike other festivals, which rely on a few big-name singers such as Ronstadt, Vicki Carr or Vicente Fernandez to sell thousands of high-priced tickets, the Santa Ana festival focuses squarely on the mariachis.

“Nati’s been talking for years about letting the mariachis shine,” said Fogelquist. “His goal has been to make them a show in itself. We subscribe to that idea.”

Fogelquist and his brother, Jim, have been among the leaders in Orange County in giving mariachi music a suitable stage. Having begun as a student group at UCLA--hence the name--the Mariachi Uclatlan has evolved into Orange County’s best and since 1981 has played in El Mariachi restaurant in Orange, which is owned by the Fogelquists and a few other longtime band members.

In the last two years, the group has added a harp and two violins to bring its number to an even dozen. Uclatlan’s arranger, Juan Manuel Cortes--who is serving as the festival’s music director--is coming into his own and beginning to build up the group’s stylized repertoire, said Mark Fogelquist.

“Our group is known for fairly refined playing,” Fogelquist said. “We haven’t developed power--we don’t collect guys with big voices and temperaments. They cause too many problems.”

One theme embodied in the festival lineup is the idea of keeping mariachi music alive among Latino youth. Besides Uclatlan and Los Camperos, both of which are successful enough to play in their own restaurants, the festival will feature mariachis from Belvedere Junior High School and Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles County; Mariachi Mexicapan, a young East Los Angeles group; and the UCLA student mariachi.

“There is a big student movement that we try to cultivate,” said Jim Fogelquist. “We’re trained as teachers, and we want to keep the tradition alive as far as we can. We’re certainly not in it for the money.”

Mariachi Festival 1990 will take place today and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Fiesta Marketplace, 4th and Spurgeon s treets, Santa Ana. The Mariachi Uclatlan is scheduled to play at 12:20, 1:20 and 3:30 p.m. today and at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday. Los Camperos de Nati Cano will perform at 2 and 5 p.m. today and Sunday. The two groups will play together both days at 5:20 p.m. and will be joined by all other mariachis at the festival for the final 20 minutes. Admission: free. Information: (714) 550-0910.